[ad_1]
Updated 1 hour ago
A 51-YEAR-OLD MAN was found guilty of murdering an Irish woman and an Australian, but was acquitted of the murder of a third, still-missing woman, after one of Australia’s longest and most complex police investigations spanning 20 years.
Bradley Edwards, 51, denied abducting and murdering secretary Sarah Spiers, 18, child care worker Jane Rimmer, 23, and attorney Ciara Glennon, 27, after they both passed night out with friends in affluent Claremont between 1996 and 1997.
Irish Ciara Glennon moved to Australia with her Irish family when she was five years old. She disappeared in March 1997 at the age of 27. Her father Denis, a native of Co Mayo, gave an emotional statement after the verdict.
“Crimes like these inflict unforeseeable collateral damage,” he said.
The past is undoubtedly shrouded in sadness. As a family, the past is transcended by the good memories of Ciara … her spirit, her friendship and, above all, her courage.
Yesterday, Judge Stephen Hall delivered the long-anticipated verdicts, finding Edwards guilty of murdering Ciara Glennon and Jane Rimmer, but not guilty of murdering Sarah Spiers.
The bodies of Ciara and Jane were discovered in bushland weeks after they were killed, but Sarah’s body was never found.
Edwards, a confessed rapist and former Telstra technician, faced a seven-month marathon trial in the Supreme Court of Western Australia that concluded in late June. He shook his head when the guilty verdicts were pronounced.
There were emotional scenes after the hearing concluded, with prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo and Police Commissioner Chris Dawson embracing members of the victims’ families, including the parents of Sarah, Don and Carol.
“We will never stop trying to locate Sarah,” Dawson said outside of court.
Chris Dawson, Washington Police Commissioner.
Source: AAP / PA Images
Justice Hall said evidence showing Edwards’ propensity for violent kidnapping “makes it more likely” that he was the murderer of Sarah Spiers.
But he said it could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in the absence of any other evidence about the identity of his killer.
The police investigation into Sarah Spiers’ death remains open and detectives intend to speak with Edwards again in hopes that he will reveal anything they may know.
Edwards was charged with the murder of Ciara Glennon and Jane Rimmer after a raid on his Kewdale home in December 2016. He was charged with the murder of Sarah Spiers in February 2018.
Don and Carol Spiers, Sarah Spiers’ parents.
Source: AAP / PA Images
The evidence
Justice Hall concluded that Edwards had kidnapped Ciara and Jane and that a violent fight had ensued with both women before he used a knife or other sharp object to fatally stab or cut them.
The judge said there were significant similarities between their disappearances and deaths, but the similarities to the Sarah Spiers case were more general in nature.
Edwards had insisted that he was not the notorious predator who stalked women in the wealthiest suburbs of Perth in the mid-1990s.
Justice Hall spent nearly three months considering evidence that included the testimony of more than 200 witnesses.
It took him about 20 minutes to deliver a verbal summary of a written judgment that spans more than 600 pages.
Hundreds of people queued outside the Washington District Court building from 4 a.m., filling the courtroom and two overflowing public galleries.
Jenny Rimmer, mother of Jane Rimmer arrives at the Supreme Court of Western Australia in Perth.
Source: AAP / PA Images
Edwards committed his first known assault on women in 1988, breaking into the Huntingdale home of an 18-year-old acquaintance and indecently assaulting her in her sleep.
He provided the crucial evidence homicide detectives needed to arrest him nearly 29 years later.
He had left a semen-stained silk kimono stolen from a washing rope and when it was finally tested in November 2016, matching DNA samples taken from a teenage girl he abducted in Claremont and then raped in the nearby Karrakatta cemetery in 1995.
It also matched the cellular material found under Ciara Glennon’s fingernails.
“I am satisfied … he got there in the course of a violent struggle that occurred shortly before his death,” Justice Hall said.
No news is bad news
Support the magazine
your contributions help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you
Support us now
Fiber evidence established that both murder victims had been in Edwards’ Telstra work vehicle shortly before their deaths, it added.
Denis and Una Glennon, parents of Ciara Glennon, with their daughter Denise.
Source: AAP / PA Images
Ciara Glennon’s father, Denis, gave an emotional statement following the guilty verdict.
When Ciara was considered a missing person, I asked for help to find her, at a press conference like this one, in this very room. And through tears I said ‘I would fight for her life because of the way she was raised’.
And little did we know then how prophetic these words would be: As he struggled to save his life, he left us the vital keys to DNA.
He said he has lived with the images of Ciara’s “gruesome” fatal injuries inflicted by her killer for 23 years.
Speaking on behalf of the Glennon family, he said they were not criticizing the police or scientists, nor were they criticizing those involved. “They did the best they could,” he said.
He also criticized some media reports of the case, of “dramatic headlines” and “subjective content” of some articles that “cast doubt on the work of police officers and scientists.”
He said they served “little or no legitimate public interest, value or purpose”, and “inflicted additional unnecessary suffering on my family.”
He also said there were well-crafted reports that handled the case with sensitivity, and thanked those reporters twice for their “balanced” reporting.
Lee, Jane Rimmer’s sister, said she was pleased Edwards was brought to justice.
“It means I hope I can get on with the rest of my life without all these things,” he said.
Barbagallo, who led the prosecution, and Edwards’ defense attorney, Paul Yovich, declined to comment on the verdicts.
The police murder investigation was the longest in the country, dealing with nearly 18,000 suspects.
Edwards will return to court to present his sentences on December 23.
With reporting by Gráinne Ní Aodha. The comments are closed because the sentence is still pending.
[ad_2]